as it is in heaven

I had parked and was waiting to cross the street at an intersection in downtown Birmingham early Friday morning on my way to school. I saw two young men sitting there on the curb, probably 15 years old, their hands in cuffs.

One policeman stood over them, writing furiously, and another was walking the perimeter, searching the ground around the sidewalk as though he were looking for one particular blade of grass. The boys' faces didn't look frustrated or upset at being busted. They looked hopeless.

I've seen a good bit of this sort of thing over the past couple of years, but for some reason that morning, it hit me harder than usual. And I started crying. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, crying there at the intersection of 7th and 26th in north birmingham. I turned my head as I crossed the street, hiding my tears from the traffic and trying to dry them before walking into a room full of 8th graders.

I kept thinking about how this world is not supposed to be like this. Cities should not be worn down to cracked sidewalks, vacant buildings, and adolescents in handcuffs. This world was supposed to be better. We were supposed to be better.

I thought of a sermon I heard not too long ago, and it quieted my spirit, so I wanted to share it with you. I'll try to summarize as best I can. It was on 1 Corinthians 15, and it was about restoration. I've heard sermons on restoration before, but not like this. Well, maybe I have, but I obviously wasn't paying attention.

In the sermon, the pastor talked about how we, as Christians, have a view of heaven as our final resting place. "Citizens of heaven" we call ourselves. Well actually, I've never referred to myself as that, but I hear that's what they say on Christian radio. I've known that this earth will be restored, but I think without realizing it I've solidified heaven, in my mind, as a mysterious faraway destination that has little, if anything, to do with the physical earth.

If this is true, then we have a dilemma.

True: The curse is broken, restoration is underway. Not way up there in heaven. Here. Now. But what does the return of our King do for us in a world of bondage where there are rotting buildings, chipped paint, decaying sidewalks, people without homes, and where children sit on street corners in handcuffs? In a world where things are not as they should be and where we are dog tired from trying to play a part in this restoration, tired because it seems to be all in vain? The scope and depth of the sadness and destruction the curse left is sometimes so overwhelming it paralyzes me. But then I might ask myself - isn't heaven our home anyway?

I'd never thought about it like this, but 1 Corinthians 15 says to be always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain. If I labor here - if I help paint someone's house, serve a meal, or teach someone to read, but this world is not my home, then my work IS in vain.

Actually, to say heaven is my home is to say that creation - this world and our very bodies - are a mistake and can be discarded. But this is not the case. This world will be restored, not discarded. Habakkuk 2 says that the glory of the Lord will cover the earth like water covers the sea. Like water covers the sea. So this earth was designed to be filled and saturated with his glory. Right now, it is but a shadow of what it is supposed to be.

Likewise, we, in all our ugly sin, are mere shadows of what we were created to be. But in the mire, we get glimpses of the newness, of the holiness that He is working into us. The same day I saw the boys handcuffed on the sidewalk, I saw three 8th graders pause in the hallway to pray for one another. This, also, moved me to tears.

This kingdom, where we will cast off the perishable for the imperishable, living in new bodies and a new earth, is coming and is very physically real. And there will be real work to do -- this is what it will mean to be co-heirs with Christ. We will labor with him. We will have dominion with him over the earth, as was originally intended. As we were originally created for. So as he brings his kingdom to be restored on earth, we can labor in the lord now, and our redeemed work will remain.

However small it seems, however insignificant, it is not in vain. He will come out of heaven to us, he will bring heaven to this earth, and restore it once and for all. To quote from the third verse of one of my top three favorite hymns of all time, "This is my Father's world. O let me ne'er forget that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet."

After the last two years of near constant frustration and feeling like a wheel spinning in sand, I think I get it now. Not that I'll not be frustrated again, by any stretch, but I think I understand better why planting flowers on a street corner matters, even though it is just one of a thousand corners that still sit littered and barren. I think I see why providing an attractive place to sit in the shade matters, and why teaching someone to write about it all in their own words matters, too, though it might be one thirteen year old who wants to learn out of a hundred who don't.

It does matter.

Let it be on earth as it is in heaven.